


Turk Retirement

by TwoCatsTailoring



Series: Meta Collection [6]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Death, Fanwork Research & Reference Guides, Gen, Meta Essay, Nonfiction, Retirement, Shinra, archived from twocatstailoring blog, the Turks - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 18:29:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16792372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwoCatsTailoring/pseuds/TwoCatsTailoring
Summary: Meta about possible Turk retirement: the possible lies and truths surrounding the reputation of the Turks of ShinRa and how they have done and do business.





	Turk Retirement

**Author's Note:**

> Archived from twocatstailoring tumblr.

I have long held the belief that the idea of Turk retirement being a body bag has been, on some level, a handy lie even from the time of Before Crisis. The motivation for the lie and the reasoning behind it have altered, but the role of the Turks, from the time of Vincent Valentine when they were but an infant bodyguard unit to a post-Dirge of Cerberus world where we are not told by canon what they are up to, has altered dramatically more than once. 

It only stands to reason that the reason for the lie would too.

Why do I even think that it is a lie in the first place? Well there are a couple of very telling drops of information scattered throughout the Compilation that lead me in this direction. The first that struck me was Reno’s line about only a fool sacrificing themselves for a job. This indicates that Turks value their lives, value also their comrade’s lives. Also, there is the fact that, after disappearing and being hunted by ShinRa after defeating Jade weapon, enough TURKS are still alive to return to Midgar and help with the evacuation during Meteorfall.

Tempting morsels and then, when you factor in the fact that over and over again Turks are contradicting themselves: Veld reprimands Tseng for saving a soldier instead of protecting company secrets in Special Episode: Tseng, but then turns around and does the same thing himself, saving Tseng at the risk of company information.

Veld actually seems to do this a lot, giving orders in a loud, clear voice then undermining those very orders with his actions. It’s clear as Before Crisis continues that the tension between the Turks and President ShinRa/The Board of Directors is intense. Tseng takes up the mantel of office and does it as well, issuing orders about Zack, finding him and bringing him in while knowing that is the last thing any of his Turks will do. It is understood by the Turks that the desires of upper management are not where the orders come from and they follow their _leader’s_ instructions.

So here we have set a precedent of lying. I mean, we all know that Turks lie, right? the lie, cover up, and eliminate threats to ShinRa, right? It is in the job description. However, they lie to their own ends. Because their loyalty is to each other, particularly in Before Crisis. Not to ShinRa. Themselves as a family.

If they were strictly loyal to ShinRa they would not have kept Rufus under lock and key for years to ensure the safety of one of their own as well as his daughter, who had led AVALANCHE 1.0 (under Rufus’s own funding and direction) in trying to destroy ShinRa. To say that the Turks are loyal to ShinRa first and last is to overlook this.

So what purpose would it serve for the belief to be that the only way you leave the Turks is to leave dead? Well, most pointedly, recruitment. They are few in number and if it is generally believed that once in you don’t get to leave with a pulse, that is step one in deterring people who are not prepared to give their 100%. Then there is the very real mortality rate of being a Turk. The things they take on are no joke and (by the end of Before Crisis) just going for a taco in the wrong city could be deadly. The Old Man is out for blood, Turk blood and is determined to have it.

But even beyond the canon we have for the Turks, the idea that the only way out is to die is a bit far-fetched. By the time of Advent Children, Rufus ShinRa - now the president of what’s left of ShinRa Inc. - is taking action to right the wrongs that were committed by both his father and himself. He is attempting to atone for what was done in his family’s name, and even if his first grand attempts are incorrect and extremely misguided, he did try.

That is a far cry from a few years earlier when he was all about making the world fear him so as to rule them all. My point is that things, people, circumstances change.

Look, for example, at Vincent Valentine. As a Turk, he was good for his time. the requirements then were different- bodyguarding mostly for a fledgling power company who had only started building the plate of Midgar a year or so before. I find it likely that Vincent had no idea what Project S really was at all, hence is shock and dismay when his girlfriend got involved with it. Tseng and Co. might have blanched, but would have averted their eyes, doing their jobs unless there was a threat to the Turks directly. Different time, different jobs, same title.

In the same way, I can’t believe that the job of Turk would have stayed the same over the years after Meteorfall. Yes, there would still be a need for guards, for information specialization, but I can’t think of a reason that ShinRa would need kidnappings. Or murders. I even feel like the Turks and Rufus were aware of the presence of Deepground, but just never brought it up to the public because of the extreme radiation, destruction, and then abandonment of Midgar and Sector 0. 

Deepground crawling up would have been a PR disaster too, ShinRa quietly backing the WRO, feeding funds to them in the hope that someday ShinRa could rise again, not as a monoploy because Rufus is wiser than that, but then this hits and they all have to think fast. Killing people won’t help, kidnapping and cover-ups won’t either because the people of Gaia won’t have it anymore. Inately, they mistrust anything ShinRa, so the goal is damage control. 

And controlling what information gets to the public and how it is presented is an excellent job for the Turks. After all, they know how to use information and words and sway public opinion. They’ve been doing it for ages, after all. I also think that in all of this, the four Turks still with ShinRa work very closely with Rufus out of necessity. There are dark days, post Meteorfall and then again post AC. Again, we can only reason that post-DoC as well, there would be dark times. And in dark hours, the bond between people grows stronger when they have walked through hardships together. This, too, is a departure from years past, when the Turks were strictly an entity within ShinRa, not belonging to ShinRa on anything but paper.

But, the changing times, the changing roles, the alteration in the focus and goals both of the Turks and of ShinRa as a company and of Rufus ShinRa as a person lead me to believe that the retirement to a grave idea would become even less true in the years after DoC. But the idea of it would be a carefully held and fed notion for recruitment. It would serve, along with the most strict standards of conduct and training as well as the tightest internal security and (personal opinion) bringing several of the BC Turks back into the fold, to keep the less dedicated and discreet of the applicants out of such a sensitive position.

Because you must remember that not only do the Turks of OG and AC protect ShinRa, they protect _the_ ShinRa. They guard and aid Rufus and should Rufus wish to pass the company on to his heirs, he will pass the asset that is the Turks as well. And I can’t see Tseng, Reno, Elena, or Rude wanting some namby pamby sell-out looking after the next generation, not after what they and Rufus would have been through to rebuild the name and the company.

But, with moderately less physical danger - because there will always be people who wish ShinRa dead. There will always be dangerous jobs, always be engine failures, accidents, and _**risk**_ in being a Turk - they can be expected to live longer. So while I can see the idea of graveside retirement being cultivated as a belief among the public and even right up through the new Board of Directors of Neo-ShinRa, the unspoken reality of it is that retirement is something you have to ask for. And when you ask for it, you will get it. Quietly and with incredible benefits because to talk openly about these things is to shatter the lie and every Turk knows that the lie protects them.


End file.
